JP2000059431A - Voice transmission method and voice transmission terminal - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To relieve the load of a communication network by means of transmission data quantity reduction processing, in a transmission section in voice transmission via a communication network. SOLUTION: In voice transmission via a communication network 21, on the premises of interpolation processing by a voice reception terminal 22, an input voice monitor section 203 of a voice transmission terminal 20 monitors the waveform of voice data received by a voice input section 201 to delete part of the voice data. Thus, a packet assembly section 204 assembles the result into a packet, the transmission data quantity of a voice packet data communication network 21 is reduced, and the load on the communication network due to voice transmission is relieved.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a voice transmitting method and a voice transmitting terminal for transmitting and receiving voice via a communication network.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, voice has been transmitted / received via a telephone network, but in recent years, voice transmission / reception via a data communication network such as the Internet or an ATM network has been increasing. For voice communication via a data communication network such as the Internet network or ATM network, a method is used in which a signal encoded by a digital encoding method is divided into packets and transmitted from a transmitting terminal to a receiving terminal. .

[0003] A conventional voice transmitting terminal for packetizing and transmitting voice will be described below. FIG. 3 shows the configuration of the voice transmitting terminal 30 when transmitting and receiving voice packets. 301 is an audio input unit, and 302 is an A / D which encodes audio data output from the audio input unit.
A conversion unit 303 is a packet assembling unit that converts the digital audio data output from the A / D conversion unit into data packets, and a transmission unit 304 is configured to transmit the audio data packets output from the packet assembling unit to the communication network 31. .

The voice transmitting terminal 30 configured as described above
The operation will be described below. The voice input by the voice input unit 301 is encoded by the A / D conversion unit 302, converted into a data packet by the packet assembling unit 303, transmitted to the communication network 31 by the transmission unit 304, and transmitted to the communication network 31.
Is transmitted to the voice receiving terminal 32 via the.

In a communication network in which an input voice signal is packetized and transmitted, the packet does not reach the receiving side within a predetermined time due to an irregular delay occurring in the communication network, and the packet is lost. There is. This makes it impossible for the receiving side to reproduce the audio signal of the missing packet portion, resulting in deterioration of audio quality. Regarding the loss of the voice packet, the voice interpolation method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-27827 does not perform buffering of the data at the receiving terminal, so that the reproduction caused by the fluctuation of the time required to transfer the voice data packet is performed. The deterioration of the sound quality is corrected by interpolating the audio signal by the audio interpolation unit on the receiving terminal.

In another voice transmitting terminal disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-216860, a method is used in which, when input voice is silent or very small, voice data is not packetized and transmitted to a communication network. It reduces the load on the communication network.

In another voice transmitting terminal disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-149090, when a silent section continues for a predetermined section, a silent section code indicating that the predetermined section is a silent section is generated. By reducing the load on the communication network by transmitting voice data, the voice data is compressed by outputting a voiceless section code and a voiceless section code together with a voiceless section code.

[0008]

However, it is difficult to reduce the load on the communication network only by performing the voice interpolation processing in the voice receiving terminal by the voice transmission method as described above. Further, in a system of non-transmission of a silent part and a silent compression for the purpose of reducing the amount of data packets at the time of transmission, there is a problem that a load on a communication network varies depending on a ratio of a silent part of input voice.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to reduce the load on a communication network due to the transmission of a voice packet on the assumption that the receiving unit performs interpolation processing when transmitting a voice packet, and to perform interpolation on the receiving side. An object of the present invention is to provide a voice transmission method and a voice transmission terminal that can be sufficiently heard by processing.

[0010]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to monitor a waveform of voice data input to a voice transmitting terminal when transmitting voice data packets through a communication network by voice input, and to perform interpolation processing in the receiving terminal. This is achieved by means for performing a transmission processing for reducing the transmission amount of audio data packets, which partially deletes the audio data, to a certain extent.

The above object is also achieved by an input unit for inputting a voice by a voice transmitting terminal, an A / D converter for converting a voice signal output from the voice input unit into a digital signal,
An audio monitoring unit that monitors the waveform of the audio data output from the / D conversion unit, determines a location to be deleted for audio data packet transmission amount reduction processing, and deletes the audio data packet; and an audio digital output from the audio monitoring unit. This is achieved by providing a packet assembling section for converting data into data packets, and a transmitting section for sending out a data packet output from the packet assembling section to a communication network.

[0012] According to the above-described means, on the premise that a voice receiving terminal that performs interpolation processing is used, a portion of the voiced portion of voice data input to the voice transmitting terminal is partially deleted to reduce the amount of voice packet transmission. By doing so, it is possible to reduce the load on the communication network.

[0013]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration in which a voice input to a voice transmitting terminal 20 according to an embodiment of the present invention is transmitted to a communication network 21 and received by a voice receiving terminal 22. The voice transmitting terminal 20 has the following configuration. 201 is a voice input unit,
Reference numeral 202 denotes an A / D converter for converting audio data output from the audio input unit into a digital signal, and 203 monitors the waveform of the audio data output from the A / D converter and converts the input audio signal into a digital signal. An audio monitoring unit 204 determines the location to be deleted and deletes the audio data. 204 is a packet assembling unit that converts the audio digital data output from the audio monitoring unit into data packets. 205 is an output from the packet assembling unit. The transmission unit transmits the data packet to the communication network 21.

The voice transmitting terminal 20 configured as described above
The operation will be described below.

The audio signal input to the audio input unit 201 is output to the A / D conversion unit 202. The A / D conversion unit 202 performs A / D conversion on the audio signal output from the audio input unit 201. The audio monitoring unit 203 monitors the waveform of the audio data output from the A / D conversion unit 202, determines a deletion point of the audio data to such an extent that the audio data can be reproduced in the interpolation processing in the receiving terminal, and determines the audio data according to the result. A process for deleting a part of the data is performed. As a result, the voice data from which a part of the data has been deleted is output to the packet assembling section 204,
The packet assembling unit 204 converts the audio digital data from which a part of the data has been deleted into a data packet. The voice data packet output from the packet assembling unit 204 is transmitted from the transmitting unit 205 to the communication network 21.

The monitoring by the voice monitoring unit 203 is described with reference to FIG.
This will be described with reference to Graph 1 shown in FIG. Graph 1 is a graph schematically showing a process in which a part of an audio signal input to the audio input unit 201 is deleted by the audio monitoring unit 203.

Graph 1-1 shows the waveform of the input audio signal. In accordance with this waveform, the voice monitoring unit 203 determines the location where the voice signal is deleted by dividing the voice signal waveform at every arbitrary analysis time.

A graph 1-2 shows the waveform of the audio signal partially deleted by the audio monitoring unit 203. Here, the waveform of the audio signal divided for each analysis time is monitored, and based on the monitoring result of the audio monitoring unit 203, the input audio signal is partially deleted to a certain extent so that the receiving terminal can perform the interpolation processing. That is, when the same audio signal waveform continues continuously as shown in the figure, deletion is performed every other break at every analysis time. As described above, the audio data is divided into arbitrary sections, the waveform is monitored, and every other audio data in the section having the same waveform as the audio data in the immediately preceding section is deleted to reduce the data.

The graph 1-3 shows the waveform of the audio signal in which, when the waveform of the input audio signal is the same as the previous waveform, the audio monitoring unit 203 deletes all the continuous portions. is there. As described above, when a waveform equivalent to the waveform in the immediately preceding section is continuous, the deletion rate of the continuous portion can be arbitrarily selected.

The monitoring and reduction of the voice monitoring unit 203 will be described. Generally, the duration of a vowel of voice during conversation is 50 ms to 150 ms. For example, if the sampling time of one packet is set to 20 ms, a maximum of seven packets having only a vowel repetitive waveform per word are generated. Since the vowel continues for several packets in this way, by removing the repeated waveform period of the vowel, it is possible to reduce the amount of voice packet data transmitted to the communication network.

The voice monitoring unit 203 monitors the waveform of the input voice signal, and deletes a signal in a section determined to be not equivalent to the immediately preceding signal waveform from among the signals divided into arbitrary analysis sections. It is determined to be inappropriate and is output to the packet assembling unit 204 without being deleted. The packet assembling unit 204 assembles the packets of the data input from the audio monitoring unit 203, and the assembled audio data packets are transmitted from the transmitting unit 205 to the communication network 21.

The receiving terminal 22, which receives the reduced audio packet data, performs an interpolation process on the deleted packet portion to repeatedly reproduce the audio data of the packet received immediately before, so that the original audio signal can be accurately reproduced. Decryption becomes possible.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, it is possible to reduce the amount of voice packet data transmitted from a voice transmitting terminal via a communication network, and to reduce the load on the communication network. It becomes possible.

[0025]

As described above, according to the present invention, the transmission unit performs the transmission data reduction process at the time of transmitting voice packet data on the premise that the receiving unit performs the interpolation process. Can be reduced, whereby the load on the communication network can be reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram schematically illustrating a sound signal reduction process according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration block diagram of a voice transmission terminal according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a configuration block diagram of a conventional voice transmission terminal.

[Explanation of symbols]

Reference numeral 20: voice transmitting terminal, 21: communication network, 22: voice receiving terminal, 201: voice input unit, 202: A / D converter, 20
3: Input voice monitoring unit, 204: Packet assembling unit, 205
... Transmission unit, 301 voice input unit, 302 A / D conversion unit, 303 packet assembly unit, 304 transmission unit.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A voice transmission method for digitally encoding and packetizing input voice data and transmitting the data through a communication network, wherein a waveform of the voice data input to the voice transmitting terminal is monitored.
An audio transmission method characterized by performing an audio data packet transmission amount reduction process for partially deleting the audio data to a certain extent at which interpolation processing is possible in a receiving terminal, and transmitting the audio data. 2. The voice data packet transmission amount reduction processing means is characterized in that voice data is divided at an arbitrary analysis time, and voice data in a section having the same waveform as the voice data in the immediately preceding section is deleted. The voice transmission method according to claim 1, wherein 3. An audio input unit for inputting audio, an A / D conversion unit for converting an audio signal output from the audio input unit into a digital signal, and an audio data output from the A / D conversion unit. An audio monitoring unit that monitors a waveform and determines a portion to be deleted for audio data packet transmission amount reduction processing and deletes the same; a packet assembling unit that packetizes audio digital data output from the audio monitoring unit; A transmitting unit for transmitting a data packet output from the packet assembling unit to a communication network.